


a big beefy nomad, wandering about beating shit up for money

by sesquipedalianMarquis



Series: The Meraad Chronicles [8]
Category: Dragon Age (Tabletop RPG), Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Antiva, Antivan Crows, Badass, Badass Dwarf Women, Bearded Dwarf Women, Bittersweet, Casual Sex (mentioned), Dyed hair, Ferelden, Free Marches (Dragon Age), Friendship, Goodbyes, Jader, Male-Female Friendship, Mercenaries, Multi, Nevarra, Nonbinary Character, Orlais, POV Third Person, Post-Coital Cuddling, Sellswords, Sweet, Tal-Vashoth, Travel, Treviso (Dragon Age), Vashoth, Vitaar, World Travel, dry humour, fereldan cooking is bashed, golka is secretly ben-hassrath, magnificent dwarf beard, merle is secretly ben-hassrath, not a single canon character in sight, oc fic, wandering mercenary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-01-09
Packaged: 2019-10-07 10:44:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17364515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sesquipedalianMarquis/pseuds/sesquipedalianMarquis
Summary: Meraad never stayed anywhere for longer than half a year. Here's a collection of goodbyes he has said on his mercenary travels, to all kinds of funky characters, across most of Thedas.Pre-Origins.





	a big beefy nomad, wandering about beating shit up for money

**Author's Note:**

> All of these take place between 9:20 and 9:28 Dragon, vaguely chronological. Enjoy!

It’s a well-rehearsed conversation at this point. He’s heard them say the same things, over and over, and responding is easy. Decline, deflect, maybe apologise if you like them well enough.

Kasaanda is sitting next to the city gate. If he was anyone else, it’d be a coincidence. With him, it never is. Meraad stops and waits. It takes a few long breaths before Kasaanda looks up from sharpening his knife and he smiles like he’s surprised to see him.  
“Ah, Meraad. Good to see you. Going somewhere?”  
“You can drop the act.”  
Kasaanda shrugs and puts the knife away.  
“Fair. It’s rude to just go, you know.”  
“Maybe I’m rude, then.” Something about him keeps Meraad off-balance. Not for the first time, he wonders what it is the guy used to do under the Qun.  
Kasaanda blinks once, like an owl.  
“No, you’re not.”  
“Alright, then. Goodbye, Kasaanda.”  
“Panahedan, Meraad.”  
He may not miss him, but he’s certainly going to miss that ass.

She’s the head of the company. A human, cropped brown hair, with a face that says ‘don’t fuck with me’.  
“You know you could stay, if you want to,” she says, looks up at him critically. “Like, you do know that, right? We ain’t kicking you out for being big and horny. You’re good folk.”  
“I do know.” It’s nice of her to reassure him about the whole race thing. He likes her well enough.  
“What is it then? Has anyone been giving you shit?”  
“No-one in the company has, Merle. You’ve got a good bunch here. Pryce is a little shit, but not the bad kind.”  
“You sure I can’t entice you into staying? You’re really good at hitting things, and we’ve got just a bit too many archers. Not enough hard hitters.”  
“I’m sorry, Merle. I’m sure you’ll find someone. Hired swords aren’t that hard to come by.”  
“None that are seven foot tall. I’m gonna miss you, you walking wall.” She gives him a smile and punches him in the arm.  
“Believe it or not, I’ll miss you too.”  
He leaves Lake Calenhad behind with a glowing reference in his pack, and Merle and the others say goodbyes. Pryce even tells him to not die out there, which means an almost dangerous level of fondness.

“Leaving so soon?”  
Meraad finishes pulling on his boots and turns to the elf on the bed. Irene, if that’s her name. She’s woken up, if she was really asleep at all, and she rolls over into a lounging position, artful, poised.  
“Was going to,” he says and she gives a dainty sigh.  
“Hmm, not even going to stay the night? Where will you go at this time of night?”  
He shrugs, but stops looking for his shirt. Hers is next to the bed, on the floor. There is a ridiculous number of knives in it.  
“Don’t know. You concerned for my welfare?”  
She laughs, soft and low. “I think you can handle yourself well enough. But you handle me well enough, too, and I’d hate for my pillow to run off so fast.” She stretches with the grace of a cat and looks up through her lashes. “I’d make it worth your while in the morning.”  
He considers, for a second. If she wanted him dead, he’d probably be dead. He tugs off his boots again.  
“Didn’t think Crows cuddled,” he remarks.  
She laughs again, moves to make room for him on the mattress. “Not with the people we’re paid for. But it’s my day off and I intend to make the most of it.”  
He planned to take off in the morning, but it’s closer to early afternoon when he leaves her room. The following day, Treviso shrinks into the distance behind him.

He’s an archer. A damn good one too. A tiny elf with the markings of an escaped northern slave.  
“I know the others aren’t sad to see you go,” Rowan says, after watching Meraad pack for a long minute. “But you’re not a bad guy.”  
“Glad to have changed your opinion.” Meraad packs his whetstone, his money, checks that the half horn is still in his pack. “Maybe I should take an axe for the others too. Then they’d be sadder to see me go, do you reckon?”  
“I owe you one for that,” the elf tells him. “I owe you my life, kind of.”  
“You don’t owe anyone shit any more. Taking a hit for an archer is a swordsman’s job in a fight like that.”  
When Meraad turns to look at him, Rowan doesn’t look convinced.  
“Look, if you want to make it a symbolic thing to be absolved of your debt, give me some of your booze for the road and I’ll call it even. I don’t want a life-debt.”  
Rowan considers that and nods.  
“I don’t know where you’re headed, but don’t go north,” the elf offers. “I don’t think you’ll find work there.”  
“What, you don’t think the magisters would trip over their robes to hire my services?”  
Rowan laughs without humour.  
Meraad leaves Nevarra with a skin of rum in his pack and doesn’t go north.

The elf wants to come along. A tiny, fierce, spear-wielding thing, Efendirth. Barely twenty, if that. Fierce enough that Meraad could have thought them a reaver, if it weren’t for that incredibly sunny disposition. People who love life that much don’t become reavers.  
“I’m not just useful in a fight. I can help with finding herbs for your battle-paints. I’m pretty good at it.” With the Dalish markings on their face, Meraad doesn’t doubt it. “Ohh, what herbs would you even need?”  
“Most of the stuff Qunari traditionally use is Northern. Doesn’t grow in this kind of cold. Y’know, deathroot, rashvine. Cold plants like arbor blessing don’t work as well.”  
“And it has to be plants?”  
Meraad laughs. “No, really not. Wyvern blood is really good. Gurguts work. Poison spiders do. But I think it’s harder to find a wyvern here in the Emprise than some felandaris.”  
“Would embrium do?”  
“Vitaar made from embrium keeps the scent. But if smelling like a Nevarran whorehouse means you can’t fight as well, you’re a shit warrior. Yeah, embrium does the job in a pinch.”  
The kid gives him that wide-eyed look, like they want to soak up knowledge like a sponge.  
“C’mon, I won’t give you the recipe,” he chides. Maybe he’d like to teach someone, have it mean something. Someday. But not this day, or this kid. “It’d kill you.”  
“But I am helpful, yes? I don’t need to stay with this company. They’re nice, but I want to see the world! More than with a clan. More than this. All the way to Rivain.”  
Meraad heaves a sigh and plops a hand on Efendirth’s shoulder. It makes them look even smaller than they usually do. What a pair they’d make, if he took the elf along.  
“Kid, I think you’ve got guts. And you’re useful. You’re built like a bird and half everyone’s age, but you carry like half the team. It’s impressive as all fuck. But I gotta go alone. I get in enough trouble on my own, don’t need to drag you in it as well.”  
“Trouble isn’t bad,” they offer half-heartedly, but their posture says they’ve taken the rejection.  
“Not always. But a Dalish and a Vashoth both? That’s just asking for it. You’ll get your chance to see the world, just not with me now.”  
Efendirth nods and pats his hand. “I’ll miss you, Meraad.”  
“I’ll miss you too, kiddo.”  
Before he leaves, Efendirth vanishes for two days. When they come back, they give him a scraggly bundle of felandaris for his vitaar. Meraad teaches them two nasty fighting tricks to take down bigger enemies as a thank-you. He heads northwards, away from the Emprise, shivers in the cold and misses the kid.

However Rogand manages to get so many braids into his beard is still a mystery. It’s not a fashion Meraad has ever seen on a dwarf. The beads in the braids click against each other when he walks, so he’s audible ten paces away.  
“So, lad. You’re off.”  
“You really have to stop calling me that. I’m older than you.” The reproachful tone is a fib and both of them know it.  
“It’s the image everyone has of dwarves, though. Jolly old guy. Every other race in Thedas thinks we’re ancient because we grow the nicest beards.”  
Meraad rubs the stubble on his chin absently. He needs to shave.  
“Long as it works for you. Silent implacable warrior works for me.”  
“And so we all play our roles,” the dwarf agrees. He sits on the bench next to Meraad. Their height difference remains ridiculous.  
“I guess we do. Are you here to say goodbye?”  
Rogand nods. “I am. The others will expect you to say farewell too, but just shouting a few words past the caravan will do.”  
“I’ll be sure to.”  
There’s a beat of silence between them before Rogand speaks up again, one hand messing with the clicking braids.  
“You say goodbye a lot, huh.”  
“Yeah. I do.”  
“It ever get tiring? Always having to learn new names, if you’re just gonna go again?”  
“Oh, yeah.” Meraad laughs. He’s not sure if he feels the laugh. “At this point I just memorise the name of the healers and the best fighter or two, and call the boss ‘captain’ or something. Keep it efficient.” He tries to remember everyone’s names while he’s there. Feels shitty when he has to call someone ‘hey, you’.  
“Mm. Sounds like it works. Don’t think I could do it, myself. I like having somewhere to go back to. We move, but only around the area. Couldn’t do what you do, Ferelden one month and Orlais then next.”  
“It’s not for everyone,” Meraad agrees.  
“Yeah, no. Well then. I won’t keep you.” Rogand stands and offers him a handshake. “Take care out there, alright, lad?”  
“I always do.”

It’s the company healer. The smallest qunari Meraad has ever seen, a tiny vashoth of five foot six. Every time he catches a glimpse of her from the corner of his eye, he has to steel himself to not flinch at the memories her slender, pointed horns and bronze skin dredge up.  
“Is it me?” she asks when he says his goodbyes, and Meraad wants to curse.  
“No! No, Asaara, it’s not you.”  
“Because I see you get uncomfortable with me. Not me, just who you think I am, before you realise it’s me.” She doesn’t even sound accusatory, just even. Too canny for her own good.  
“Bad memories,” he states in the tone that makes people nod and back off. The ‘I don’t want to talk about it’ tone. It works: she drops the question, but doesn’t go. He doesn’t really want her gone.  
“To be honest, I’d rather you stayed. You make it feel safer.”  
“Yeah, I’m good to stand behind. Battlefield can’t scare you if you can’t see the battlefield, that right?”  
She nods and sighs. “I’ll find someone else to stand behind, I guess. And you’ll keep running. It’ll catch up with you eventually, you know. It always does.”  
Meraad doesn’t meet her eyes. “I’m good at running,” he says.  
“Good luck.”  
Half the company promises to drink to him before he goes, and he allows himself to feel the melancholy of it on the road.

She’s his friend. A dwarf as wide as she’s high, with a beard that makes Meraad jealous and a tongue sharp enough to rend flesh.  
“I actually managed to convince myself you wouldn’t go,” she says and throws the empty bottle. It shatters on the cobblestones of the street below. The crash should feel cathartic, but it just feels like a waste of a good bottle.  
“I did tell you. Right at the start.”  
“You told us you’d go and then you stayed for almost half a year, you fucker. Like, look, your words said you’d leave, but every action since then didn’t. You know how you telegraph that your balance is shit whenever you have to back away in a fight? You were telegraphing that you wanted to stay. I want you to stay. The others want you to stay. The only thing stopping you is you.” She’s angry, and he can’t even fault her for it.  
For a few seconds, silence stretches between them. The city isn’t quiet around them, alive with the clamour of early night, but Meraad feels detached from it, just the two of them on the wall.  
“I do want to stay,” he says, finally. “This company is good. And the city could be worse.”  
“Pay’s a bit shit.”  
“They should’ve given us a bonus for the deepstalkers,” he agrees.  
Someone walks down the street underneath them, singing loud and off-key.  
“So why not stay?”  
“Feels like it’s time to keep moving.” He shrugs.  
She barks a laugh. “See, that’s the issue. You’re full of shit, Meraad. You pretend like you answer questions, but you don’t really.”  
“I don’t like to talk about it. I don’t want people to know about the shit in my past. I want it behind me. There, that better?”  
She scratches at the brand on her cheek. “Maybe. You know, you’re not going to let it go if you keep avoiding it. Staying might help. Make a life, Meraad, instead of whatever it is you’re doing. Live month to month instead of day to day.” She passes him an almost-full bottle and he drinks and says nothing. She ploughs on, because she’s Golka.  
“Are you really going to keep doing this? For how long do you plan to do this? You’re not young anymore, and-”  
“Golka,” he warns. She stops, grabs the bottle from him and necks it. He aches inside, a quiet, bruising hurt.  
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. Guess that was too much.”  
“Look, you’re not wrong,” Meraad admits. It’s more than he’s admitted to in a while. “And you’ve been a good friend. If anyone gets to call me out on my shit, it’s you. But I gotta keep going, long as I can. Too much shit that wants to catch up with me. Too much for one guy.”  
Her hand brushes her casteless brand again, traces the shape of it on her skin. “Yeah, I guess. Suit yourself. Still think you’re an idiot.” She offers him the bottle. He takes it.  
“Yeah. I suppose I am.”  
He leaves Jader, goes west and wonders if he should have stayed.

It’s one of the other fighters, a guy who likes to use his shield as a weapon as much as his mace. Pretty, blond.  
“Is it the pay?”  
“Nah. The pay’s fine by me.”  
“Ah, of course. It’s the Orlesian nobility.”  
Meraad actually laughs at that. “I mean, they’re insufferable shits, but I don’t mind working for whoever pays. I just feel like moving on.”  
“Where are you moving on to, then? Orlais is big.” Francis has never left Orlais before. He likes when Meraad tells stories about places he’s been after they fuck.  
“I think I’ll go further, actually,” Meraad muses. “I’ve been thinking of doing the trek up to Antiva again, pick up work on the way to keep me fed.”  
“Ah, Antiva,” Francis nods. “Crows and brandy.” Meraad has told him about them.  
“Crows and brandy,” Meraad agrees.  
He leaves. The boss barely even shrugs when Meraad says he’s going. Didn’t expect him to stay at all, he’d been upfront about that. Francis sees him off. They clasp arms and Meraad goes back to Antiva.

Antiva is still beautiful, and still dangerous, and still has the Crows and good brandy. It’s a good time. Dangerous, but good.  
“I see. You’re heading back South, then?”  
“I don’t think anyone wants me further north.”  
Emmanuel laughs and claps him on the back. “As far as the sea, and no further, I’d say. South it is. Take some spices.”  
“By the bushel. Fereldans wouldn’t know what to do with a chilli pepper if it fell in their cooking-pot.”  
“Yeah, that’s right. I wouldn’t trade Antivan food for the world.”  
They share a moment of companionable silence between them before Emmanuel speaks up again.  
“Y’know, I’m sad to see you go. Come back sometime, will you? There’s always something to do in Antiva City. I’d take you on as a merc again.”  
“Yeah, I’d like to. Antiva is great. I’ve come back for more once, might as well make it twice. And this time, I even caught Satinalia. What a time.”  
“Y’know what?” Emmanuel gives him a smile, runs a hand through his hair. It’s fading from bright purple. Maybe it’ll be bright green next, who knows. “I respect you, Meraad,” he says. “I like you. So even if I’ve given up this job when you come back to Antiva City, come by my house. Tell me what you got up to in the South.”  
“Yeah,” Meraad says, “I’d like that.”  
He gets several bundles of spices to last him a while and some good Antivan port, and heads south.

“I’ll do one job, maybe two, then I’m on,” he tells the boss. “I’ve got somewhere to be.”  
“Yeah,” the boss says, looks up at him with indifference. “Long as you do good work. Keep the danger off my guys.”  
He goes to kill the cave spiders, keeps the danger off the others, collects his pay and then he’s on. He’s got nowhere to be. But the goodbyes are easier and they roll off his tongue, with practise if not with want.

And then he finds a qunari in the Hinterlands, and the goodbye never makes it past his lips.


End file.
